Charlie Farrington

Charlie Farrington serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Virginia Tech's College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, where he focuses on sociolinguistic variation and historical change in American English dialects. Based in Shanks Hall, Blacksburg, VA, his work centers on African American Language (AAL) through corpus development and sociophonetic analysis.

His research program investigates segmental variation in AAL, preservation of linguistic audio data, and historical influences like the Great Migration on language change. As co-developer of the Corpus of Regional African American Language (CORAAL) and maintainer of the Online Resources for African American Language (ORAAL) project, he bridges theoretical linguistics with practical applications in language documentation and digital archiving.

Analysis of his 15 most recent publications (2020-2025) reveals concentrated work on CORAAL's design, management, and linguistic insights. Key themes include regional variation in AAL, sociophonetic analysis of vowel/consonant systems, and methodological advances in corpus-based sociolinguistics, with studies examining historical influences and urban dynamics across locations like Detroit, Atlanta, and Washington DC.

No scientific awards, fellowships, or major prizes were documented in the provided information.

Farrington collaborates on the CORAAL project, a multi-institutional effort to collect and disseminate African American Language data. He contributes to ORAAL, an online platform providing tools and resources for AAL researchers, involving partnerships with linguists, archivists, and community stakeholders to ensure ethical data practices and broad accessibility.